Photo provided by Fanm Djanm

Ask anyone who knows me well and they will tell you: I am obsessed with the state of my hair. (Not so jokingly) I used say that I wished to be buried with my eyeglasses, a nice purse and my hair freshly laid. And since God has given me very thick coily hair, for the past 30 years, what I meant by freshly laid hair was freshly relaxed hair. You read right, I expected the mortician to relax my hair!

But as the years went by, as I started seeing more and more of my peers with natural hair, but mostly, as I started to acknowledge the toll that all this chemical processing had on my hair and my sense of beauty/worth, I realized that it was time to stop.

That being said, the conflicted relationship I have with my hair has not ceased because I am no longer straightening it. But one of the good things that came out of this obsession was the discovery of several black-owned brands like Fanm Djanm.

It may seem like founder Paola Mathé is selling something quite utilitarian – headwraps. But once you take a deeper look at her brand’s website and at her personal Instagram account, there’s no denying that her wish is to nurture black love, black joy and black excellence. And that she aims to empower the black community.

Paola Mathé se yon vrè fanm djanm!